My biggest complaint is how underutilised Finn was. I thought the idea for his character was brilliant but then we got introduced to Rey, who was okay, but I felt like it was a missed oppurtunity. In the following movies he never got the arc he deserved. In The Last Jedi he has an arc where his motives to fight in the Resistance are reaffirmed, but I still felt like his story was underdeveloped. In Rise of Skywalker however, all his character development (the little that he got) got thrown out the window and he ran around doing random shit. I also felt like the writers were unsure about what romantic interest they wanted to give him. In the first movie it was Rey, in the second Rose, and in the third it felt like the defected stormtrooper girl. I think he should’ve been a Jedi or have helped other stormtroopers rebel.
Onto Rey. She was a Luke rehash in the first movie. In the second I thought Rian Johnson did something interesting with her dynamic with Luke. She still didn’t have much personality. In the third, complete reset. This dynamic goes to shit and she just does Luke’s arc again from ROTJ. Than we get a hamfisted romance between her and Kylo Ren. That was literally terrible. I didn’t buy their relationship even once. It was horribly executed.
Onto Kylo Ren. Another rehashing from Sir JJ Abrams. I don’t really want to even comment much on him because he’s a Vader clone with none of the depth or presence. I didn’t like him in movie and my dislike only grew.
Luke's characterisation just feels wrong. This guy forgave Anakin after he committed genocide and contributed to killing billions but he drew a saber on his nephew for having bad thoughts? What an utter character assasination.
So tldr the sequels suffer from a complete lack of originality and the few ideas which are interesting are abandoned in favor of mindless action and plagiarisation of previous movies. What I did like was the aesthetic of the movies. I thought they looked fantastic even movie 3 (execept the final act). I particularly liked the lightspeed collision in The Last Jedi even though I have been told it breaks some world building regarding hyperdrives.
If you enjoy strategy, building and war games then you might enjoy this amazing game which is called Terracore. https://www.terracoregame.com/
Finn had the most potential for me too, a stormtrooper turned Jedi or rebel leader could have carried the trilogy. If you could change one early choice to fix the sequels, would it be making him Force-sensitive or redefining Luke’s moment? Also, are you playing Terracore yet?